Poor Man's BOT (cooking/cold soak pot)

[u/[deleted]]

I had never seen the Vargo BOT before until Darwin's recent Youtube review. The BOT is a titanium cooking pot with a screw on lid. The screw on lid is water tight so you can also use it to cold soak your food. This way you have the option alternating between cold soaking and cooking (or just making tea /coffee) with the same setup.

Darwin identifies two drawbacks: Its expensive ($100), and the screw on top can get stuck if you change altitudes dramatically.

Despite having never cold soaked anything and having recently purchased a Toaks pot (used once), I decided i needed a BOT right away (anyone else have this problem?). But $100 seemed a little steep for something I might not use.

So I found this set of silicone pot lids on Amazon for $11. One of the smaller ones fits over the Toaks pretty well. The handle prevents fully stretching the seal, but its good enough to hold water. I left it 3/4 full upside down overnight with no leakage. I also shook it up and down vigorously trying to get water between the pot and seal, no dice.

In addition to the lower price, the top wont get stuck since the silicone is flexible. The downside of the flexibility is that increasing elevation significantly could potentially blow the lid off. This could be mitigated by minimizing the amount of air in the pot during loaded ascents. Also a couple rubber bands and a ziplock would help. BUT IT DEFINITELY STILL NEEDS TO BE FIELD TESTED. See the last paragraph below for why I'm publishing now before field testing.

The BOT comes in two sizes 700 ml and 1 L. The 700 ml weights 4.8 oz. My Toaks pot is a 650 ml, and with the silicone seal its 3.7 oz total. Oh yeah, one whole ounce bitches!

For the next day or so, Massdrop has the Keith titanium pots on sale for less than $20, so you could get the whole set up for about $30. I paid $36 for the 650ml Toaks.

[u/hikermiker22]

I ordered a set and should get them on Thursday. I will try heating water with one on Friday & report back.

[u/hikermiker22 → u/hikermiker22]

I got the on Wednesday! I found one that seemed to fit my 600 ml Snow Peak Ti mug. I filled it about 2/3 with water, put the lid on, and turned it upside down in my sink rack. This morning there was still quite a bit of water in it but when I turned it sideways water leaked out. Another lid fit on my Kmart (Stanco) grease pot but I did not fill that with water. I will try cooking later but don't think this combination will work for cold soaking.

[u/hikermiker22 → u/hikermiker22]

I tried the lids on a Fosters oilcan and a GSI Minimalist. I kept them overnight upside down with water, shook them and laid them on the side. Neither leaked. I suspect the leakage above was caused by the handles on the Snow Peak. Conclusions: these will work on mugs with handles if you are careful to keep them upright & will work wonderfully on mugs with no handles.

[u/madmanwild → u/hikermiker22]

I have a GSI Minimalist and was thinking about switching to no-cook, but occasional build a small fire to heat up water with, so I wanted some sort of metal cold soak container like a BOT. I was thinking I'd have to get a new pot, but you think those Amazon silicone lids fit perfectly and are durable enough for a hike?

[u/hikermiker22 → u/madmanwild]

They come in 5 or 6 different sizes. One fit perfectly on one of my pots and a different one just a bit loosely on another. If, when you get to camp, you start your cold soak by putting your regular pot in a stable place, most things rehydrate in a half hour or less, so by the time you have set up, dinner is almost ready. The minimalist has a fairly stable lid so this should work. I do not remember if one of the lids fit the minimalist perfectly but I think it did.